Dr. Nathaniel G. Lew, Saint Michael's College associate professor of music, has been awarded an IAS Benjamiin Meaker Visiting Professorship at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, for April to June 2012. IAS is the Institute for Advanced Studies at Bristol.
Professor Lew is the new artistic director of the well-known Vermont a capella singing group “Counterpoint,” and director of the Saint Michael's College Chorale. This award allows him to complete a book to be titled A Tonic to the Nation: Making English Music in the Festival of Britain.
Following World War II, Britain was so dark and depressed that a huge artistic festival was staged, the Festival of Britain, to bring the country back to vibrancy. Dr. Lew’s research focuses on the work produced for that festival, its significance, and its impact on artistic works to follow. In addition to research, he will give several public lectures at the University of Bristol.
In awarding Dr. Lew this fellowship, the committee wrote: “Dr. Lew’s research reveals how the Arts Council of Great Britain and the BBC in particular foregrounded English classical music in their plans, and how this focus helped advance new definitions of British nationhood and culture in the post-war era. “ They indicated further that “A residence at Bristol will culminate over a decade of extensive trans-Atlantic research [by Professor Lew] to collect and analyze these materials” from British libraries, the BBC and elsewhere.
Professor Lew earned his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Yale University in music, and his doctorate in music history and literature from the University of California, Berkeley, with a dissertation titled, A New and Glorious Age: Constructions of National Opera in Britain, 1945-1951. Learn What Matters at Saint Michael’s College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college,www.smcvt.edu. Saint Michael’s provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael’s College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America’s top college towns. It is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nations Best 371 Colleges, and is included in the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Saint Michael’s is one of only 280 colleges and universities nationwide, one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael’s has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael’s students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation’s top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2011 U.S. News & World Report rankings.